jianantonic | Camping - the true Massies Mill Story

I've been trying to come up with a cute little story to tell about camping to follow up my Crabtree Falls Saga (http://jianantonic.livejournal.com/315053.html, sorry, can't remember how to hyperlink), but it just hasn't been coming to me. For one thing, we didn't pose any photos for the purpose of making up an elaborate lie later. We (Danny) just snapped photos of shit that was actually happening. So nothing came to mind. And then it occurred to me - what actually did happen is an okay story, too. So I'm just gonna tell it like it was.

Danny, Jer, and I arrived first. We pulled up to the usual location, but since we're camping in spring for once instead of the effing dead of winter, we had a somewhat unanticipated obstacle:

Cows.

Now, I'm not a complete airhead. I knew the cows would be there. But normally, you approach a cow, it runs away. They don't understand that they are bigger and stronger than people, so they're scared, and you can generally get them to do what you want them to, if what you want them to do is vacate the area. But not these cows:

See, these cows were all new mommies.
Exhibit A:

Apparently, something about being a mom makes you more aggressive than usual. When I tried to shoo these cows away, instead of cooperating, they started to advance.

I don't think you can appreciate how truly terrifying it is to stare down a cow like this. I was not used to them standing up to me. In addition to their new attitude, the cows shit everywhere. It was troubling.

We finally came up with a use for those alert cards! (They put them in bidding boxes for bridge tournaments, but no one uses them, so I just steal and hoard them.)

After about an hour of diplomatic negotiations, we got the cows to agree to leave and let us camp overnight. But they were never far away, watching us the whole time we were there from the top of the hill.

Seriously. This is not typical cow behavior. It was eerie. I am not making this up.

Next we had to plan our fire. Danny found a tree that he decided would be good.

It turns out, I'm really good with a hatchet.

The boys will tell you - I cut plenty of wood. I may have a career in lumberjacking, except that I'm generally against cutting down trees. This one, as you can see from above, was already down. We were just cutting into more manageable pieces.

While I chopped wood, Danny demonstrated the size of his manhood.

Jeremy was interested.
He decided to get me drunk...

...so he could make sweet love to Danny by the...

...fire.

But it ended up not happening. They just couldn't, what with all the cows watching.

Even though we couldn't see them in the dark, we knew they were there.
The next morning, we bid them adieu and headed back to civilization. Hopefully by next time, the new mom thing will have gotten old for these cows, and they'll be a little more relaxed...and so will we.

Peace.